"Mummy, what did you do during the war?"  Catherine Speck in her new book gives us an opportunity to go and have a look.

During the war years, most women artists neither vanished nor stopped work, and in Australia Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington-Smith and Nora Heysen continued to work and exhibit and frequently in their art addressed the war effort.  In America, Lee Miller, and in Britain, the wonderful Dame Laura Knight, not only continued to work but established for themselves a national following.

What this book achieves is to bring together women artists from Britain, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, who worked during the two world wars. Through the examination of the work of 62 selected artists, Speck weaves an account of the social, political and cultural history of this period.

One achievement of this book is that it presents a broader picture of the Allied war effort, as seen through the eyes of its artists, rather than a national snapshot, which a number of earlier studies have attempted to do.  Infrastructures, social and military strategies as well as thinking about how to preserve the appearance and the cultural memory of the events which were unfolding had a remarkable similarity amongst the Allies.

Women were critically needed on the home front to assist with the war effort, but as artists they were marginalised and generally divorced from lucrative or high profile commissions and appointments.  Women artists largely depicted the war effort on the home front, and although some of the art dribbles with sentimentalism, as for example in the work of Dora Meeson, and Stella Bowen and Hilda Rix Nicholas in their quiet and distinct ways did celebrate battlefield heroics, much of the art which is brought together in this book shows either the impact of the war on the combatants and the civilians or the domestic war effort with women working in munitions factories, hospitals or in the fields.  Women entertained the troops when on visits to friendly harbours, celebrated the victories, mourned the losses and knew how to enjoy themselves when wars finished.

The other big achievement is that among the 62 artists, while there are quite a number of well known names from the art world, there is  an even a larger number of fugitive identities.  Many artists whom you may have vaguely heard of, or who have featured in various lists of names, are here brought to life, illustrated and provided with a valuable biographical note in the appendix.  Much of the art reproduced in this book does not feature in the broader canon of art and artists, including the American Grace Ravlin and the British artist, Phyllis Keyes, emerge as a surprise.  Much of this art was created as 'art as information' and was intended more as a record than as primarily aesthetic objects.  By integrating the work of photographers, graphic artists, painters and sculptors within a thematic framework in the book, Speck presents a complex fabric of imagery.

Sections in the book are 'Women on the home front in the First World War', 'Behind the front', 'War's end and its scarred land', 'Responding to yet another war', 'Women on the home front in the Second World War', 'Close encounters' and 'Peace at last'.  In each section the institutions of war art patronage are examined, a history is sketched in and the activities of women artists in the various countries are examined and then pictorially documented.  Speck avoids a strong author's voice and prefers to carefully assemble the material in a scholarly manner and to leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions.  Much of the narrative is punctuated with primary source accounts as we are allowed to hear the voices of the participant artists.  For example, Mary Riter Hamilton's images of post-war devastation in France and Flanders are made all the more poignant when accompanied with quotations from her letters home: "I feel it is very fortunate that I arrived before it is too late to get a real impression.  The changes are taking place rapidly and even in the short time that I have been here I can see a great change.  In another few months there will be very little trace of war.  There is nothing in any way amusing about seeing this devastated country, indeed it is one tragedy after another."

Speck concludes that the vantage points from which women responded to the two wars were different.  The Edwardian women "were mobile, assisting as nurses and VADS [Voluntary Aid Detachment] in a liminal space between the front and the home front."  The women of the Second World War were of a different ilk.  "They were still moving through war zones, but the women were no longer in a liminal space.  They were 'out there', mixing with soldiers at the front, and they were members of many more women's services, while the home front itself was no longer a safe zone."  This shifting nature of gender roles, changing technologies of art production and the changing nature of the purposes of this art are some of the other key issues addressed in this important book.

In recent writing there has been an obsession with militaristic histories which glorify war efforts.  In this pioneering study, Professor Catherine Speck moves the focus to the home front and the role of women, as recorded through the art of women.